


the King's Stilts

by KING (pelted)



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: Rebels
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Body Swap AU, Embarrassing as an Improv Group with Much Worse Consequences, Implied/Referenced Torture, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-03
Updated: 2018-05-03
Packaged: 2019-05-01 19:11:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,753
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14527239
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pelted/pseuds/KING
Summary: When Zeb and Kallus switch places after their forced bonding time on Geonosis' moon, it goes... about as well as it could for about as long as expected.Which is to say: it goes horribly almost immediately.





	the King's Stilts

Geonosis was not a planet where good things happened.

To put it another way: finally closing the mission, pointing the _Ghost’s_ nose away from the dusty planet and jumping into hyperspace brightened Hera’s day immensely. 

They’d escaped the Empire again, though - in Zeb’s case - _narrowly._ His crash on Geonosis’ moon had been two day cycles and a number of tense, in-and-out hyperlane jumps ago. It was only after said jumps and day cycles that Hera felt confident enough to say the Empire was no longer on their tail. 

At present, it was the night cycle of the third rotation. While her crew deservedly caught up on missed sleep, Hera - nursing her own mug of caf - began and sent off the report confirming Geonosis’ curious lack of life forms. While the Empire was undoubtedly involved and Hera anticipated the worst answer to the question of _how involved_ the Empire had been, they needed to lay low and give the _Executor_ both the space and time to forget them. Technically, they would need to wait on the Rebellion’s next mission. But, if they were lucky, they’d have enough downtime to finish the minor-to-moderate ship repairs they’d pushed off. Time, too, to take a _full_ inventory, and maybe even restock the kitchen shelves with something tastier than nutrient rations… 

A loud _thump_ from outside the cockpit interrupted Hera’s mental mapping of what not-entirely-seedy ports they’d have easy access to, hovering as they were along the Outer Rim.

Turning in her seat, Hera raised an eyebrow at the door. Chopper, docked in his recharging station, chirruped grumpily.

 _Who would be up at this hour?_ Anyone for any reason, benign (a midnight snack) to unfortunate (nightmares), but they usually weren’t so clumsy. Then again, who knew? Maybe Ezra had developed sleepwalking and ran into a wall. She wouldn’t really be surprised.

Another _thump_ and rumbling, unintelligible growl told her it was probably Zeb floundering outside of his cabin. That wasn’t a common occurrence for him, so she figured she should see if he needed some help.

Chopper, however, let out an unhappy grumble of his own at the interruption.

Hera shook her head and rolled her eyes.

“You don’t _have_ to get up. If I need you, I’ll let you know.”

He blinked a yellow light at her in understanding, then visibly hunkered further into his station.

She set her mostly empty mug down on the dash, then she stretched her arms over her head, ignored the pops along her back, stood, and started for the door to the main hall. 

“Zeb?”

“Ah-- captain?”

Ezra sleepwalking himself into a wall wouldn’t have been surprising. 

Zeb, clinging to the wall and looking like a knobby-kneed, six-foot-and-some-change-tall toddler, _was_.

Hera blinked at him.

Zeb blinked back, his ears flattened to his skull.

“Need some... help?” She asked, both eyebrows creeping up.

“Ah.” His eyes were round as a TIE fighter, every inch of him screaming discomfort. “No. Thank you. Captain.”

Hera scrunched up her nose. _Captain?_

“Right.”

She eyed his almost desperate grip on his cabin’s door frame and its leftmost wall, folding her arms over her chest.

He attempted to straighten and release the wall, attempted too to turn-- and ended up just leaning heavily on his door, his feet placed awkwardly wide and far away from the rest of him.

Taking that in, she put on her most unimpressed face.

“Are you drunk?”

He frowned, then - in a feat even more awkward than his stance - smiled. It was too-wide, too-toothy, and painfully fake.

“No?” He tried.

She maintained her unimpressed expression for a moment longer, then broke it with a small, exasperated smile.

“I’m not going to ask how you hid anything decent for so long, but I will ask that next time, you share.”

“Ha ha,” he said, also painfully fake. “Yes. Of course. I will do that.”

She looked pointedly over his shoulder. “Were you headed to bed?”

He wouldn’t blink, wouldn’t look away from her. 

Eventually, he said, words halting: “Yes. Ye… _p._ I was.”

She snorted, then stepped forward to help.

He held himself so stiff and still she thought he’d give himself a cramp. 

“I’m not angry,” she said when he didn’t loosen up even after she’d gently put his arm around her shoulders (quickly shaking her lekku out from underneath), helped him away from the door, and pushed the button to slide it open. “Seriously. You can relax.”

As if it were the first time someone ended up drunk on their own. Usually Zeb saved it for cantinas where he could start a brawl (if he was particularly pissed off), but maybe what happened on the moon-- which he hadn’t extrapolated on- or even the potential reality of Geonosis’ situation had set him off. Given the empire’s historical involvement with suddenly empty planets, she could see why. 

Whatever it was, she wouldn’t pry. If Zeb wanted to talk, he’d talk.

When he just gave another stiff, fake laugh, she kept her mouth shut and helped him to his bed. He kept stumbling, one foot catching on the other. Even though it was only five steps from door to bed, they very nearly tipped over twice.

They got there eventually, and she disentangled herself before lowering him onto it. He murmured thanks, said he _had it from here_ , and swung his legs up to better lay down. 

_Thank goodness Ezra slept on the top bunk,_ she thought.

Just as she righted herself and figured she could go, a voice piped up from the top bunk.

“What’s going on?” 

Even if Ezra hadn’t been one of the lightest sleepers she’d met, all the thumping around Zeb had done probably woke him up.

“Zeb’s drunk,” Hera said, fully aware of the teasing she was unleashing on Zeb come a full night’s rest and the day cycle’s arrival, “be nice.”

Immediately, Ezra pulled himself to his bunk’s edge and leaned his head over to gape at Zeb.

“Where’d you hide _alcohol?_ I’ve searched every cranny of this place! All I’ve found were sugar stashes, dusty paint jars, and empty bottles.”

Zeb stared back at him, clearly both flabbergasted and overwhelmed by Ezra’s intensity.

He must have hoped to get to sleep without his roommate noticing. The drunken rarely reacted to the unexpected well.

“You’ve searched _recently?_ ” Hera asked, pointedly. 

_Once a thief, always a thief,_ not that it was necessarily the worst quality a person could have, especially when the thief was on your side.

“Uh.” Ezra’s head snapped up to her. Then, quite quickly, he rolled back to lay flat on his bunk, hands laced on his chest, eyes pointed to the ceiling. “Nope. Why would I? -- Anyway, ‘night, Hera, Zeb.”

“Good night,” Hera said, turning for the door with another small, not-as-exasperated smile, “sleep well, you two.”

Zeb echoed them quietly, his _night_ almost fading into the ship’s background hum. 

As she left and the door slid shut behind her, she heard Ezra say _if you have to throw up, try to make it to the ‘fresher in time_. She didn’t hear Zeb’s response, though it had a distinctively growl-like quality.

After returning to her own empty room - Kanan had all but fallen asleep as they’d _left_ Geonosis and didn’t need her crawling into bed late to disturb his sleep -, she remembered noticing that Zeb hadn’t smelled like booze.

By the time she would have thought the detail strange, however, she was fast asleep.

\- - -

The situation was not good.

The situation was, in fact, bad. 

“Admiral, it will be an hour before we arrive at Lothal.”

“Good. Hold steady. Agent, a moment?”

The Star Destroyer’s bridge, despite hosting well over a dozen crew-men and officers, did not bustle. The vent chilled air seeped easily through cloth; the sharp, dark lines of the windows and computers and panels swallowed light; everything, including the people, looked polished within an inch of its existence. A small cleaning droid rolled along one wall, barely noticeable in the glum.

When it disappeared into a tiny shaft, he found himself almost sad to see it go. It was just about the only thing that didn’t reek of _military-grade perfection._

“Agent?”

Zeb tore his eyes away from the droid’s closed hatch, fought back a renewed need to either run very far away or start smashing computers, and glanced to the left. Then to the right. Then back again.

One technician hastily looked away after Zeb caught her eye. Catching humans staring wasn’t too unusual, but she didn’t have the usual sense of shame about her -- rather, if he was reading her right (and who knew if he was - human expression was full of surprises), she seemed… fearful. 

That made him _really_ want to run. 

Behind him, the Admiral cleared his throat.

“ _Agent._ ”

Zeb blinked and, slowly, turned. 

Oh.

Right.

That was _him._ He was… the agent. 

The _Agent._ Agent Kallus. Agent Alexsandr Kallus, said his identification chip, Imperial Security Bureau agent. Him. ISB agent.

Yep.

The situation was really, really bad.

“Yes?” He hazarded, because the Admiral - Konstance, or some such - looked quite impatient.

He tried to make himself sound as insufferable as he remembered the actual Kallus sounding when he was unhappy and inconvenienced (which had been their whole interaction on the moon), but it was hard. Partly because he’d never been one for acting and every word and deed felt fake to an nth degree, and partly because when he spoke, he couldn’t believe his voice wasn’t _his_ usual baritone, but instead the agent’s.

The Admiral’s frown deepened.

Zeb forced himself not to take a step back.

“A moment, if you would?”

Zeb blinked again, overtaxed mind slow to pick up what was being said.

Then, with a start, drew himself up and tried not to sound completely wrong-footed. He’d practiced talking and walking and everything else human-like in Kallus’s room until it had become clear via commlink that he could not avoid the rest of the ship, but a few scant hours of practice felt like nothing compared to actually standing in the middle of an Imperial Star Destroyer and pretending to be-- _Kallus._

“Yes,” he said, pitching his voice low with what he figured sounded like confidence (human vocals were _weird_ ), “right. A moment. You’ve got it, Ad-- ah, Admiral. Lead the way.”

The Admiral did not look very impressed. With a sharp look, he turned on a heel and started for the door.

Really, he wanted nothing more than to shake down a technician for whatever information he could get, transmit it to the Rebels, and high-tail it out of the nightmare as fast as he could. 

But while he knew the _Ghost’s_ frequency, he didn’t trust his slicing skills enough to avoid detection on what was inevitably a long-range transmission. Also, he figured he had to wake up soon. And if this _was_ a position he was going to be in, it was an incredible opportunity for gathering intel.

Plus, he definitely would wake up soon. 

There was also the issue that hijacking a ship was well and good but he wasn’t sure where he’d even go, since he couldn’t very well contact the _Ghost_ and find out where they were. For once in his time as a member of Hera’s crew, he wished they weren’t as good at disappearing as their namesake.

If he wanted to fly somewhere and go low profile while he figured out the _Ghost_ problem, well, he didn’t know Kallus’s codes for his bank accounts so he wasn’t sure how much credits he had to his-- his new body’s name. Worse yet, the agent’s leg was still tender enough that, if things did go south in any of his plans to escape, actual running was out of the question, and _this could not be real! He had to wake up soon!_

Somehow, Zeb kept all those thoughts to himself, zipped his mouth shut tight, and hobbled off the bridge after the Admiral. His leg was stiff and uncooperative and, in its own way, icing on the cake of whatever humiliating nightmare this was. Bad enough he’d had to give himself a crash course on walking with mankind’s ridiculous legs, but oh no, one of his had to be _defective_ , too. 

His skin felt sticky, sensitive and cold, the ISB uniform nearly suffocating in how it stuck to him. When he brushed his hand against his forehead, it came away damp.

Temporarily forgetting his surroundings, he made a face. 

_Egh._ Right. Humans sweated. 

Gross.

Then, his stomach dropped, because-- oh, _karabast._

He was a _human._

This was very, very, very, _very_ bad.

\- - -

“Just wanted to let everyone know that we’ll be arriving at Tarrok in thirty minu-- _whoa_ there.”

Ignoring the exclamation as well as how small the doorway from lobby to hallway was, Zeb shouldered past Kanan, punched his cabin’s door command, and disappeared into his room. All without so much as a grumble or glance of acknowledgement, and in such a foul mood besides that the air - even for the Force blind - crackled.

Curiousity piqued, Kanan raised both eyebrows at the shut door. When he turned back to direct the same look at the remaining lobby occupants, surprise, uncertainty and not a little frustration met him.

They’d all had a good cycle’s sleep, and no signs of tailing Imperials or pirates from Geonosis. The Rebellion had been equally quiet over the airwaves. They were due - and planned to - enjoy a few days’ worth of portside vacation. There was no clear reason for the tension in the air that Kanan could think of, at least not off the top of his head.

He looked to each occupant in turn, silently questioning.

Sabine, standing to the side with a no-longer-dripping green paint-brush, shrugged.

Ezra dropped his gaze to the floor with a scowl, shoulders stiff and arms crossed. His face was unusually red.

Kanan cleared his throat, and distantly wished Hera was around to break the tension. 

“Right. Do I want to know what that was about?”

“Trouble in paradise,” Sabine quipped. “They’re getting too old to share a room, Kanan.”

Ezra’s irritation spiked so dramatically, it felt like a slap to the face. He redirected his glare from the floor to the 

A ghost whispered that a Padawan his age should have better emotional control than that, but Kanan ignored it without a second thought.

“Zeb took my toolkit and won’t say where he put it.”

Maybe Sabine was right. The kids were getting too old to share a room.

When his Master didn’t jump to his defense, Ezra threw up his hands in obvious distaste. “He said he needed it for some bo-staff repairs before Geonosis, but now it’s been three days and he says he has no idea where he left it! The ship’s not that big - how could he forget where he put it?”

“Have you looked for it?” 

Ezra’s glare was not as intimidating as he thought it was. Rather, it was quite petulant. 

“Not _yet_. He should know where he put it! He knows I need it.”

Beneath the outward anger, however, lurked something uncertain and discomforted. Without prodding further into their bond, Kanan knew a misplaced and forgotten toolkit was not the real point of his ire.

Kanan rubbed at the back of his neck, wondering if he should press him on it.

Ultimately, he decided against it. Zeb and Ezra had grown close enough that Kanan couldn’t imagine his interference would actually help. Their ribbing might’ve gone too far, or Zeb had a need for space after his cold night on the moon that Ezra hadn’t respected--- whatever it was, they would figure it out. They always did.

“We’re arriving at port in thirty minutes,” Kanan repeated, backing out of the lobby after Sabine’s absent nod and Ezra’s small huff of acknowledge, “be ready to dock.”

As he left for the the cockpit and to report the latest development in their little crew, he heard Sabine’s, “If you really need tools that bad, just borrow mine,” and Ezra’s grumbled assent. 

When he passed Zeb’s cabin, he reached out - limited and unintrusive, the act alone still novel after years ignoring his origins - to touch upon the lasat’s presence. It was as difficult to find as anyone tightly controlling their thoughts and emotions, which was unusual for Zeb but not terribly surprising. The altercation had obviously gone pretty south for him. He probably just needed time.

 _Yeah_ , Kanan thought, feeling relatively confident and quickly drawing his attention back to himself. _They’d be fine._

. . .

Insofar as space ports went, Tarrok was quiet. Due in small part to being Mid Rim and a handful of jumps from the heavily trafficked hyperlanes, and in larger part because of the slow, steady asteroid belt it clung to, Tarrok was a Rodian settler colony that had never taken off and, far as anyone could tell, never would.

The port boasted a fistful of commercial venues, a smattering of (abandoned) ore-processing shops, an underbelly of ramshackle apartments, and a singular refueling station with prices that were just shy of exuberant. Fortunately, the station’s attendant, manager and owner was not above haggling.

In other words: it fit their needs for a quiet vacation perfectly.

Sabine, being in the middle of painting her latest mural, volunteered to stay aboard and watch the ship. Zeb protested, but only tokenly. He was quickly whisked away by Hera and Chopper, the latter of whom was grumbling again about new parts and the former of which needed extra hands to carry the bulkier ship parts they needed for restocking their emergency stores (as well as someone to remind both Hera and Chopper that they didn’t have the funds to replace droid parts that _weren’t_ broken). 

Kanan negotiated clearance for the _Ghost_ to dock for five day cycles. Then he took time to stretch his legs and case the port and its people, if only to make sure they hadn’t missed a recent development that meant the Imperials actually cared about the backwater space port.

They didn’t, luckily. Two Imperials - wash-up scientists, far as he could tell - remained stationed at a defunct research facility on the edge of town, but that was it. He told the others to steer clear of the facility, which most of them responded with their equivalent of _du’h, of course_ , and that was that.

Ezra disappeared into the meager market for the entirety of the first day and night cycles. When he returned, he was much more settled and much less irritate. For all he never regretted joining the _Ghost_ and her crew, Kanan knew the tight quarters and familiarity could weigh on him -- stops like these, fortunately, straightened him out faster than attempting meditation.

On the second day, Chopper croaked and Hera translated that an Imperial transmission had ghosted along their main frequency. It had cut as soon as it’d hit, however, and Chopper had worked fast to up their scramblers. As nothing - neither troops nor blaster fire - followed the odd transmission, Hera proposed a new operator on some long-range transmission base had tangled up their frequencies, and that they shouldn’t expect anything more from it.

As peace held and her proposal seemed true, the rest of the crew accepted it with a collective shrug.

The next morning, Hera told Kanan about Ezra and Zeb making plans to check out a fruit-stand Ezra had discovered earlier. Hopefully, they wouldn’t bring back anything that gave either indigestion (a miserable experience for everyone, as Zeb typically cooked their better meals) or an angry shopkeep looking for payment (also an unpleasant experience, though less frequent than in prior stops). 

“Harmony restored,” Sabine noted dryly, a streak of blue along her chin and a rainbow splattered across her front. 

“Are you going to add a tree for the monkey?” Kanan asked her.

“That’s a convor,” she said, scandalized in her _are you blind?_ sort of way. 

He tilted his head and squinted his eyes. 

She rolled her eyes and told him to leave her alone, that he shouldn’t comment on an art piece before it was done, and that he should get his sight checked while they were docked.

So. Yeah. Everything was going fine.

Until, of course, it wasn’t.

It took until day four, whereupon Zeb ran into the port’s only two Imperials at the local cantina, was recognized, and managed to take long enough to escape that reinforcements were called and had arrived before Zeb could even inform the _Ghost_ crew that they needed to pack up early. In the end, they all - Zeb included - found out that reinforcements arrived at the same time: when a line of stormtroopers cut off Zeb, Ezra and Kanan from the dock’s entrance, Hera five minutes from their location, and Sabine and Chopper scrambling to get the _Ghost_ in the air.

Kanan was pretty impressed the peace lasted as long as it did.

He was not terribly impressed with Ezra and Zeb’s renewed squabbling, though at least it sounded like their normal mid-battle banter. 

“What were you doing with the Imperials?!”

“Nothing! I was just passing through!”

“It had nothing to do with the extra supplies we heard they had stocked? You were just passing through, _without_ me--?”

Blaster-fire interrupted Ezra’s indignant squawking, a well-aimed bolt bursting their cover into sharp, unwieldy metal shards. Kanan dived to the left, behind a pillar. Ezra dove right, rolled, and began sprinting for another row of crates.

Zeb tried to follow Ezra, but tripped over his own feet and face-planted. 

Face-planted _hard_ , going by the lasat’s snarl.

The two Imperials, their half-dozen bucket-headed reinforcements, and one opportunistic bounty hunter immediately took aim at the open and easy prey.

Kanan turned in time to see Ezra make it to cover; to see, also, how Zeb awkwardly scrambled up, teetered, and brought his own bo-rifle up, as if he stood any chance against those numbers; most importantly, to note the angles and chances of Zeb walking away alone without looking like a fried loth-rat. 

It gave him just enough notice to leap out from behind the pillar, lightsaber ignited, and reflect a green blaster bolt that would’ve seared through Zeb’s forehead.

Instead it seared through a stormtrooper’s shoulder, but sadly didn’t fell the man.

“I can fight my own battles, _Jedi_ ,” Zeb snapped, poisonous in his vehemence.

Under it - beneath the battle’s fury, the stormtroopers’ determination and the bounty hunter’s elation at rewards so large standing within her small-town grasp - leaked fear and shame, at such odds with the stoic tension Zeb had been carrying throughout the week. 

Moreover: at such odds with how he’d ever before spoken to Kanan that if he’d had the moment to spare, he would’ve demanded what in the world Zeb meant by _that._

( _Jedi_ \- spoken like a slur. Hearing it from his own crew stung deeper than he’d expected, old alarm bells ringing and adrenaline spiking.)

But Kanan was not new the battlefield. Without missing a beat, he snapped back: “Then you know if you want to fight another day, you’ve got to move.”

Three more shots from the bucketheads. Kanan deflected them all, neat and clean and precise. Two stormtroopers fell, their chest plates smoking.

One more fell in short order, the shot fired from behind Kanan and clipping close enough that he could feel its heat next to his ear.

Fortunately, Zeb bit off a snarl (and his pride) and took off for the crates. He fired two more shots as he went, though both missed by a hair’s breadth. 

Kanan ducked his head and followed, shelving the ringing in his ears about _Jedi_ and a distinct feeling of _wrongness._

Shielding was as natural as breathing for him, but he could tell Ezra caught a whiff of his non-battle-related discomfort, though most likely not what had caused it.

Ezra met them behind the crates with a quick, “Took you long enough,” for Zeb and a curious, questioning look to Kanan. Neither replied. Then the bounty hunter had the bright idea to charge them - no wonder she wasn’t someone Kanan recognized - and the battle was back upon them.

Sabine’s voice crackled through Kanan’s transmitter, directing them to the _Ghost’s_ newest parking zone. It was atop a four-story apartment building. They had three minutes before more Imperials arrived and their window to leave without a dogfight would close.

They’d need to make sure they either lost or reduced the numbers on their tail, she continued, because Hera had lost her blaster and would be barely making it as it was. 

_Doable_ , Kanan thought. _Barely. As usual._

The bounty hunter took herself out, Ezra throwing out a hand and smacking her in the face with her own flash grenade. 

The non-trooper Imperials were easy to lose in the streets to the _Ghost’s_ location. Cover sufficiently blown and lightsabers no longer off-limits, Kanan and Ezra made short work of the four bucketheads remaining, while Zeb directed them to the appropriate fire ladder and led the way up the apartment’s siding. 

When they arrived on the roof, the _Ghost_ had her gangplank down and hangar door open. Ezra raced in, Zeb right on his heels. Kanan took point by the ladder, searching the dark roads and alleys for Hera.

Over the transmitter, Sabine gritted out: “Any time now, Captain.”

Hera was not impressed. “I’m working on it!”

“Zeb,” Kanan called over his shoulder, ignoring a Force-forsaken feeling that Zeb _shouldn’t_ , “take the rear point. She might need cover.”

“We have less than thirty seconds,” Zeb responded, feet planted firmly on the _Ghost._ “If we want to make the jump without adding to the repair list, we need to go.”

“Without Hera?” Ezra, thankfully, voiced Kanan’s shock. When Kanan looked, Ezra looked at Zeb as if he’d started spouting ancient Sith poetry. “No way.”

“Be realistic,” Zeb growled, teeth bared and ears flattened. The rest of him remained curiously stiff. “We need to go. The pilot can be replaced.”

Ezra stared, too shocked to do more than take a half-step back, mouth dropping open but words dried up.

Kanan’s alarm settled into cold dread, like a block of ice in his gut.

Zeb wasn’t bluffing. The Force told them that he meant every word-- and not because of malice, but simple pragmaticism. 

Hera, thank the Force, interrupted.

Sounding hale and whole but terribly annoyed - she’d planned to spend the day negotiating down new droid parts for Chopper, something she thought of as a treat and he really couldn’t understand -, Hera said over the transmitter, “Found you. Heading up now. Sabine, keep the engines hot.”

“You got it, Captain,” Sabine replied. “Any followers?”

“Not that I can tell. Kanan?”

“None I can see,” he replied. “See you soon. We’ll need you for getting off this rusty satellite.”

Hera huffed an acknowledged. “Not the worst odds we’ve had. Really, for us, this is barely an inconvenience.”

That was true.

Without looking at Zeb, Kanan backed away from the edge and made his way up the _Ghost’s_ gangplank.

Ezra’s shock gave way to wariness, shot through with heated spikes of confusion. Kanan tried to project patience and restraint, but he struggled to center himself, the memories of Zeb’s actions and words - and the Force’s whispered warnings, the feelings of _wrong_ \- already playing on loop in his mind. He wasn’t really in the position to stabilize a Padawan, too.

It was almost a relief that they had to fight their way off the port, around Imperial dogfighters, and into hyperspace. At least the excitement provided a decent distraction-- or, more truthfully, a good excuse to wait on addressing _whatever_ in the Sith’s hells had gotten into Zeb.

\- - -

Five days into being human, and Zeb felt quite rightfully impressed with himself.

He’d figured out the stupid Imperial coding systems for the doors and computers, and more importantly, which areas he was and wasn’t supposed to be in (the fun part: Kallus had access to nearly _everything_ ). He now received only _half_ as many confused looks during the thrice-damned and far-too-frequent conferences that Imperial officers liked to hold. No droids or workers looked twice at him, no bucketheads showed up to escort him away.

He was pretty sure he had a solid idea about how to contact the _Ghost_ without throwing up a big, blinking, neon sign saying _rebels here!_ He just needed a free second to do it. 

Sith’s hells, he was keeping an eye out for that free second. Having Kallus’s face was nice and all for intel-gathering purposes, but he found that Kallus’s coworkers just drove home how much he really, really, _really_ hated the Empire, and he’d much prefer to leave sooner than later.

The voice that he’d forced himself to ignore because if he didn’t he’d really, really be freaking out told him that he needed his body back sooner than later, too-- but, hey, one step at a time. One breath at a time. 

One annoying, horrid, isolating experience at a time.

Topics in the cafeteria ranged from the frivolous to the malicious, with the latter half keenly highlighted by the former. The star destroyer was due to arrive outside of Kashyyyk for a so-called _routine_ patrol; by the crew’s commentary, the stop might’ve been routine, but everyone’s distaste for wookies and rebels and _aliens_ was as strong as if it’d been the first trip.

Zeb was most impressed with himself for keeping his mouth - mostly - shut when a few grunts started speculating about the number of Twi’leks they expected to make acquaintances with after the _backwater, too-hairy for anything decent_ stop on Kashyyyk. _Sure_ , he’d failed to keep a few sarcastic comments to himself, but far as he could tell, they were warranted. 

At least Kallus didn’t seem to personally know many people aboard the ship. For all that it was a boon for Zeb, who was self-aware enough to admit he wouldn’t have been able to make nice small talk with the majority of crewmates for more than three minutes, the lack of anyone even willing to approach the agent in the break-room or after-hours was a little surprising. According to the Admiral’s behavior and occasional oh-so-unsubtle questions about any updates on the expected duration of the agent’s assignment, Kallus had been a member of the crew for a while. Still, the only holos, messages and conversation he received were work-related. 

Maybe he thought the crew was as ignorant and blind as they obviously were.

…

_Probably not._

It was a little lonely, Zeb thought. A little cold. Actually, _very_ cold. Like moon-of-Geonosis cold.

Very fitting for what he’d expected of the Empire.

Point in fact: the most non-duty-related comment Zeb had gotten was on his first day in Kallus’s body, wherein a technician from the bridge had paused by his lunch table and asked, a little too forcibly light and polite to be natural, “You aren’t taking your lunch at your desk, sir?”

At that point, sure he’d be outed by the end of the day cycle, he’d simply shrugged and replied, “Eh. Not today.”

The technician’s head had bobbled, his polite mask cracked with obvious, open curiousity.

Zeb had stared back at him, unsure of what more he should say. Irritation had already bubbled up, ready to turn to angry discomfort if the technician decided to ask to join him for lunch.

Instead, the technician had ho-humed, piped out a, “Very good, sir,” and scurried on to join an adjoining table of three. 

All ended up sneaking glances at him. Not feeling great about being stared at, wondering what exactly he could letting on-- what, was it his food choice? His chewing technique? What didn’t match up to what _Kallus_ would do?-- he decided to take his lunch at his desk after that. 

_Anyway._ Kallus’s lackluster social life aside, things were going alright.

Things ended up going _great_ when, at the end of the fifth day - another day without anyone suspecting a thing -, he found his free second.

Usually, days ended with him writing up reports about the ship’s status for ISB. Routine things, they were nothing exciting so long as there was nothing exciting to report. As far as Zeb could tell, everything onboard was _as usual_ , so he’d mostly been copy-pasting old reports into that day’s form and sending them off. If anybody was on the other end and thought the repetition odd, they hadn’t confronted him about it.

By the time anybody would think it odd, he’d be long gone.

At least, that was the plan. 

That was… about the extent of the plan, actually.

Yeah, okay, okay. It wasn’t his best. But it was the best he had. 

On the fifth day, a tiny bug in the system put their report duties on temporary hold while a bigger bug stalled out and crashed their record databases. As technicians and programmers distracted themselves with fixing the bugs and officials got their knickers in a bureaucratic twist, Zeb found it an easy thing to let himself into the primary communications room.

He ordered the barebones security - one stormtrooper - out, citing the need for privacy with ISB matters.

The stormtrooper didn’t argue, probably happy to have some more free time to do who-knew-what. Zeb didn’t much care; it meant the Imperial eyes left.

He limped to the main controls and pulled out the scrambler he’d nicked out of storage. With a wince, he took a seat on the plastic chair next to the terminal, rubbing absently at his leg. The leg was obviously getting worse, but he didn’t want to risk it with a medical exam (what would they find? _consciousness of a lasat?_ hah! -- no, the potential for hysteria was too high), and he’d ran out of Kallus’s painkillers the day before.

In all likelihood, he was walking on it wrong. 

_Somehow._ The ankle was too low, the foot was a flat mess, reactions were too slow-- was that from the bum leg, or just how humans normally were? Ezra and Kanan barely counted as humans with their Force nonsense. Sabine wasn’t a great model for the standard, either, given her origins. Where had Kallus even come from? Was his heritage somehow different from the usual? What _was_ the usual?

Jeez. He didn’t know. 

At first, being human strange enough to feel crazy and surreal. He’d checked himself out in the refresher’s mirror at all angles, poking and prodding at pink skin with subdued amusement. After waking up for the fifth time in the body, however, it was hard to even catch reflections of his ( _Kallus’s_ ) face in too-clean glass.

Zeb mentally shook himself. Then physically shook his head, dragging his hand down his face and blowing out a breath.

“C’mon, Orrelios,” he muttered, hating the sound of his - _Kallus’s!_ \- voice in his ears, “focus. You’ve got a crew to contact.”

Free second. Just a second. Couldn’t take too long, couldn’t risk being discovered, couldn’t risk the questions or interrogations or execution block.

Like hell he’d die a _human._

Zeb keyed in the frequency that no Imperial should know, one straight for the _Ghost_. As it was connecting, the long-distance taking time to crunch through its processes, he readied the scrambler. He’d need to make contact, give his situation, his crazy, crazy situation, then erase all evidence of his reaching out and beat it, _immediately._

As the transmission went green, contact with the _Ghost_ established, he breathed a relieved sigh.

Soon, the nightmare would be done.

Behind him, the door to the communications room hissed open, and the Admiral asked, voice colder than Geonosis’s moon, “Agent? What do you suppose you’re doing?”

\- - -

Captain Syndulla was, to Kallus’ consternation, a fantastic pilot.

A fact he’d known before he’d become an unwilling, purple furred member of the _Ghost’s_ crew, but one which nonetheless, upon witnessing it from inside of the ship rather than a Star Destroyer’s bridge, amazed him. Imperial reinforcements had arrived in the system, with half of a fleet’s worth of dogfighters closing in on the tiny port. Yet, she managed to slip through their numbers and jump to hyperspace with nary a scratch.

 _Troublesome,_ he thought. _Was it my duty to sabotage their escape?_

Except: their escape meant his escape. 

Except: their escape meant where he was now, facing down the tiniest, brattiest, and most annoyingly perspective Jedi formerly known as Jabba.

Kallus stood with his back to the lobby’s wall, arms crossed tight across his chest. He could feel his fur-- rather, his _hair_ standing on-end, everywhere, as if to make himself look bigger; likewise, he could feel his ears pin and his lips curl; mostly, he felt his foot tapping in a mix of restless irritation and a baser, now too-familiar feeling that he would not give name to.

Ezra, finger jabbed at his chest, demanded, “What has gotten into you? ‘Leave the pilot,’ were you _serious?_ ”

“Listen, kid,” he retorted, batting the hand away before crossing his arms again, his voice too-deep and more a rumble than words, “I just-- I- I wasn’t thinking straight.”

“No kidding!”

At least the child was angry. That boded better for him than the silent apprehension from before they’d escaped. The wide-eyed and too-shocked look had promised Kallus that his cover would soon be blown. As he hadn’t yet mapped a coherent escape plan for _that_ happening, he couldn’t afford the risk.

“Sorry,” he added, feeling like it might’ve been something Garazeb would’ve done. “I didn’t mean to say… that.”

True. He hadn’t meant to say something so damningly un-Zeb-like. Really, he hadn’t realized how un-Zeb-like it was until the two Jedi had given him twin looks of betrayal. The looks had dropped his stomach to his feet, and made him feel beyond itchy and too-hot; he’d been sure it had been the last tip-off, that they’d know something was well and truly wrong with their friend, and that he’d soon be seeing the inside of a Resistance cell or, at the least, facing down an interrogation droid.

In hindsight, he _should’ve_ known better. The _Ghost_ crew was known to operate as a tight unit, with obvious familiarity and almost enviable loyalty. They’d never left a member behind before.

Once upon a time, he’d thought it was a matter of practicality: letting one’s own be captured was often as good as giving up all that individual knew to the enemy.

After close to nine cycles with the crew, however, he’d learned better. The crew was a family in everything but blood. Affection bound them as much as discipline (which they lacked to an insulting degree).

In the heat of the moment, he’d forgotten. 

_A fatal mistake._

Forcing himself to shelve the thought and its overwhelming implications, he breathed slow and deep through his nose and repeated, doing his best to sound apologetic, “I’m sorry, Ezra. Really. Think I lost my head back there. I, uh… I haven’t been feeling well. For a while now.”

Also true.

The tiny Jedi opened his mouth, clearly unconvinced, but the larger one cut him off.

“Ezra, leave it.”

Jarrus stepped forward and placed a hand on the boy’s shoulder. The two shared a look that Kallus wasn’t sure he liked -- but after a silent pause and invisible battle of wills, Ezra looked away with a scowl.

“You’re not feeling well?”

Kallus’s eyes snapped to Jarrus. The concern on the man’s face was horrifically obvious.

And to think, not too long ago, he’d tried so hard to crack the man’s calm mask wide open. Where he’d used physical torture and intimidation, he should have just threatened one of the man’s crewmates.

(Inwardly, a once-silenced voice asked, _What happened to you, Kallus? You used to reward loyalty. You used to prize honor. Here are people living that dream, and you can only think about how best to take them apart._ )

Silently, he shook his head, paused, then dropped his shoulders and put on a look of bone-deep exhaustion.

It wasn’t difficult to fake. It wasn’t really faked.

“No idea what I’ve come down with. Feels like I’m burnin’ up.”

Hah. Let them figure that one out. Nine days in this body, and he still had no idea what the healthy temperature for a lasat was. He just assumed he ran hot.

Jarrus openly frowned at that, the shadow between his eyebrows deepening.

Behind him, another _Ghost_ crewmember cleared her throat.

“We’re safe for now,” the Wren girl said when all of them glanced over, her brightly colored helmet tucked under her arm. “What’s this about Zeb being sick?”

“Sure I just need some rest,” Kallus muttered, doing his best to keep his irritation out of his voice. 

The crew cared about each other. Great for them. He just wished they’d leave him be about it.

This was already two questions more than he’d received upon his return from Geonosis’ moon and release from the medbay. He considered himself a fine actor, but overwhelming concern wasn’t something he’d dealt with since he’d left the front lines for the ISB. In other words: it was highlighting his weak point, and that was beyond frustrating.

Wren tilted her head, eyebrow raised. “Would say Chopper could take a look, but I barely trust him with the ship.”

“You’ve barely been sleeping as is,” Ezra cut in (and Kallus wondered how he knew; he had been careful to be much quieter in his movements after that first disastrous night), his expression amusingly matching Jarrus’. “Maybe you need something better than rest, huh?”

While he scoured his brain for an appropriate response, Jarrus, in a move both gratifying and highly suspicious, intervened.

“I think we could all do well with a breather.”

Wren gave Kallus -- _Zeb_ \-- one more curious look, but then shrugged one shoulder and, apparently decided they could all fend for themself, continued on through the lobby to her cabin.

“Ezra,” Jarrus said, voice low. 

As Kallus watched, feeling vaguely like he’d stepped onto a Wookie-trap without knowing how or where, Ezra shot Kallus one more unhappy look, then locked eyes with Jarrus, and then, finally, shrugged both shoulders and trudged toward his - _their_ \- cabin.

“Zeb.” Now, who had made Jarrus captain? Kallus preferred Syndulla. She seemed less prone to prying. “Why don’t you come with me, and we can take some medical readings?”

Kallus forced himself to meet Jarrus’ eyes, ignored his spike of alarm (which, at this point, felt burnt out: the day had been a long one, from his attempt to contact his actual superior to their abrupt departure from Tarrok), and nodded.

“Sure.”

At Jarrus’s slight smile, he felt like he’d taken his foot off the trap’s trigger and its steel teeth had latched into his calf.

He’d tell himself it wasn’t that bad, that he just had to last long enough to get to the isolated safety of his bed, but he was no idiot. _Unfortunately_ , neither was Jarrus.

. . .

“Hera? What is it?”

“Sabine told me we have a health scare on board.” Hera leaned a hip against the doorway, a loose sense of sleepiness settling in after the excitement of escaping their latest close call. “How’s it looking, Zeb?”

“Fine,” the lasat answered. 

He didn’t sound happy about it.

“So… That good, huh?”

Assuming he was lying to cover his pride (a typical Zeb move), she directed her comment to Kanan and, more specifically, to the ancient but operational bioscanner in Kanan’s hand. 

From her point of view, the screen looked green. 

_Huh_ , she thought, as an awkward silence filled the room. _Zeb wasn’t lying?_

“That wasn’t all you wanted to talk about,” Kanan noted without looking at her. It would’ve been a non sequitur and vaguely insulting assumption from anybody else, but at their relationship level, he didn’t need to be Force sensitive to know her moods.

Anyway, he was spot on. She’d thought about waiting until she woke up from a four-to-six-hour collapse on her bed, but worried about it slipping her mind.

After all, it really wasn’t anything big.

“Remember those odd Imperial transmission we received? I ran a cross with what we picked up from the reinforcements,” Zeb’s attention piqued; Kanan’s head tilted, attention shifting but not, she thought, on her, “-- and none of them matched.”

Zeb’s ear twitched in annoyance. His eyes dropped back to the bio-scanner.

 _Huh_ , she thought again, and took a good look at Kanan’s body language.

Tense. Very tense.

She couldn’t keep the frown off her face or out of her voice upon realizing that.

“I checked in case our unknown caller was why we’d been spotted, but it doesn’t seem like the case.”

“It was because of me,” Zeb volunteered, though the admission sounded dragged out of him. “Wandered too close to the research facility. Thought the troopers were out for lunch and there’d be something worth finding inside.”

“Wrong on both accounts.”

“You could say that.” 

“Lucky we all got out on time. Did you not know they’d noticed you?”

“No… I know, it was stupid, but I completely missed them.”

He hunkered down where he sat on Kanan’s bed-turned-med-bed, hands clasped tight between his legs and head turned away from both of them.

Restless. Extremely so.

Zeb had gotten sick _once_ while aboard their ship. Either his immune system was nothing to sneeze at or diseases affecting lasats were as rare as his species-- whatever it was, it meant when he did get sick, he got it bad. The illness had bedridden him for nineteen standard cycles, and had included a nasty green rash, bald spots where fur fell in clumps, and his gums filling with pus.

It’d been disgusting. It’d been very hard to miss. The disease hadn’t even existed on Lasan; it had been some super-space-bacteria that they’d needed an advanced med-droid’s help to cure.

He’d said that was standard for how sick he got after Lasan’s destruction. He just didn’t get sick the usual way - he had to _go big_ with it, like he did with everything else.

In other words: the bioscanner was probably green not due to a malfunction or lack of data on lasats, but because Zeb really wasn’t sick.

“Am I good to go?” Zeb asked Kanan, his shoulders still stiff. “Still feelin’ like I could use some shut eye, no matter what that says.”

“The scanner says you’re clear,” he answered, said scanner dropping to his side as he stood in apparent dismissal. Then, in a light, airy manner that put Hera on alert immediately, “Good thing. Would hate to see you laid up as bad as last time.”

Zeb blew out a breath. “Yeah. No kidding.”

“What had that been called, again? The green plague?”

“Had a lot of names,” Zeb grunted, standing from Kanan’s bed. “That might’ve been one of them. I try not to remember.”

The temperature in the room seemed to drop, though Kanan didn’t budge an inch.

Hera’s frown deepened.

“Zeb.” She thought through her word choice carefully, and spoke slowly. “What were you doing at that Imperial facility, again?”

He glanced at her side-long, his brow furrowing. “Huh?”

“The research facility. I’d told you it was occupied.”

He held her gaze, chin nudging upward.

Silence returned and settled heavily over them.

Kanan was the one to break it, taking a step back but never turning away from Zeb.

His question made Hera’s mind spin, especially as she couldn’t say it was unwarranted. 

“Who are you?”

Face blank, Zeb continued to hold Hera’s gaze.

She thought, _he’s planning something_. And, _he? Who?_ And, _a doppelganger? An infiltrator? On_ their _ship?_

And, _Then what happened to our Zeb?_

It explained Zeb’s odd behaviour. His spats with Ezra, the awkward split-second silences with the rest of them before he caught on to conversations, the feeling of measured distance that was as alien to Zeb’s character as his recent inability to sleep and lack of an appetite. How he’d holed himself away in his room rather than sit with them in the lobby. His run-in with the Imperials. His apparent tension with Kanan and Ezra after their escape. A doppelganger explained it all.

That didn’t make the claim any less absurd. Hera felt herself trying to rationalize the other way, even as Zeb -- or whatever was in Zeb’s body -- took two neat steps back and perched, gingerly, on the bed’s edge, every movement stiff. 

All at once the expression on his face twisted, from impassive to cruel. 

That, more than anything else, banished Hera’s hopes that Kanan was wrong.

“Not Garazeb Orrelios,” he said, voice caustic, “obviously. Took you all long enough. Suppose you don’t know him as well as you think.”

Hera straightened, eyes narrowing-- but Kanan beat her to the punch.

Rather than rising to the bait, he asked, “Where is he?”

Not-Zeb sniffed. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

Kanan dropped any trace of respect from his voice. “I think you’ll find we can be very persuasive.”

The other’s jaw set stubbornly.

Then he laughed - a short, humorless breath. His shoulders slumped. His expression became arrogant, disdainful.

He was, Hera had to admit, a somewhat decent actor. 

(Still. How _hadn’t_ they noticed?)

“Then start persuading.” Lazily. Unthreatened. “But be warned. Whatever you do to me, Orrelios will undoubtedly feel-- _if_ you ever get him back.”

What in the world did _that_ mean?

“We’ll get him back,” Hera swore, her anger rising fast, “and you’d better hope that happens sooner than later. Kanan, watch him; I’ll get the binders and inform the others.”

Kanan nodded. Not-Zeb-- the imposter-- finally looked away from her to glare at him. But he didn’t move to stand, didn’t budge at all aside from clasping his hands between his knees. He seemed to be hunkering down for a long play, which was just as well. 

Whatever had motivated him to take on Zeb’s face - that he was so obtuse about it meant he couldn’t be Imperial or an Imperial’s bounty hunter; they never hesitated to boast about their sponsors -, they’d figure out eventually. 

Before that and most importantly, however, they needed to find out what had happened to their friend. _Whatever you do to me, Zeb will feel--_ that put a cold shiver down Hera’s spine.

Maybe they weren’t dealing with a doppelganger, but something more sinister. Was Zeb still in there? Had this creature just superimposed his consciousness on him?

Exiting the room and comming for Sabine and Ezra to meet her in the lobby, Hera gave herself a mental shake. There was no use in her panicking about it, in coming up with a dozen different reasons Zeb was well and truly lost. That would help Zeb the least, and besides, they hadn’t even started questioning the creature.

Going forward, she had to believe they could help Zeb. The alternative was unacceptable.

. . .

“So let me get this straight.”

Hera gave Sabine a tired look. Sabine empathized. She hadn’t even been involved in the first half of the interrogation (that had been mostly Kanan, claiming he needed to make sure whatever creature had taken Zeb’s place wasn’t a threat to the rest of them), and the subject had tired her out, too. 

“Since we left Geonosis, Zeb’s been occupied by some… creature?”

“Yes.”

“Which explains why he’s been such a nerf herder lately,” Ezra muttered, even though he looked more worried than irritated.

“Yeah.” Sabine tapped her finger on her crossed arms, just once. “So. To get Zeb back, the creature says we need to bust into a Star Destroyer and shake down an ISB agent.”

“So it says.”

“Because it was part of some experimental technology, it was born virtually yesterday, and it doesn’t really want to be stuck in Zeb’s body any more than we want it to be.”

“That’s right.”

Sabine turned the facts over again, looking at them from the upside and the downside and the every-side. 

Nope. It still made no sense.

Worse: it felt like one big, mega, super obvious trap, and yet, she could tell Hera was ready to drop everything and fall right into it.

She asked, unable and unwilling to keep the skepticism from her voice, “And why are we believing it?”

“Because it’s the best lead we’ve got.”

Sabine turned her attention to where Kanan leaned against a wall. His expression was grim and not a little ticked off. She could empathize with that, too, because-- _seriously?_

It had to be a trap.

Unhappy with the lack of the obvious in the conversation, she said as much.

“This is a trap. Everyone knows that, right?”

That made Ezra pipe up, though he didn’t look happy about it. “What else are we supposed to do? We can’t just give up on him.”

A hush fell over all of them. Even Chopper, Zeb’s least favorite fan, kept his comments to himself.

They were all gathered in the cockpit. It was the place farthest from the closet in the lobby that they’d shoved the bound not-Zeb into, and thus the safest to talk strategy in. Chopper had surveillance up on the closet’s status: thus far, everything was quiet. Unlike Ezra, they figured, there was no way a Zeb-shaped person could fit in the ventilation shaft.

And if the creature changed shape and escaped, well, then they’d know for sure the thing had been lying.

Poor Ezra, Sabine suddenly thought. He’d been _rooming_ with the creature. 

And Sabine had been feeling sympathy for its obvious exhaustion and bad mood, and taking its comments on her new mural to heart (it’d complimented the blues and purples of the clouds, said she had a real eye for color), and sleeping on the same ship as it, and giving it the space it claimed it needed.

The deception made her blood boil. Even if it _wasn’t_ some shapeshifter and had, in fact, been an accidental result of experimental infiltration technology-- which was such a far stretch Sabine couldn’t believe they were even humoring it- it had gone along with its little mission just fine for nine full cycles. Only once they called its bantha shit for what it was did it turn on its creators? Yeah, _right._

“We should let the Resistance know,” she finally said. “Let them take a crack at it. Maybe someone knows about this technology. If Fulcrum corroborates the story, then, sure, I’ll believe it.”

“And risk taking longer?” Ezra asked. “What if there’s some sort of… of, time restraint on this?”

“Did it mention a time restraint?” Sabine looked over. Kanan shook his head. “Then, yeah. To not run head-first into a giant trap? I’d be willing to wait.”

“Maybe,” Ezra allowed.

Sabine wanted to step on his foot. What, did he think she didn’t care as much as he did? That she didn’t want Zeb back as of yesterday?

Whatever. Ezra had always been too ruled by his heart. As far as she could see it, that wouldn’t help get Zeb back.

“It lied about a lot,” Kanan said, “but not about its motives. It really hates being stuck in Zeb’s body. And it fully believes the only answer lies with the agent. Whether it’s right or not, I don’t think even it knows.”

“If Zeb’s in there,” Hera said, looking to Kanan and sounding unusually quiet - which told Sabine before she finished that she was definitely going to ask about a Jedi thing -, “can’t you… find him? And pull him out?”

Kanan sounded like he’d anticipated that question. Which, yeah. He should’ve.

“That’s not how the Force works.” He scrubbed a hand over his face, taking a moment to apparently think over what he wanted to say. “Once I started looking for it, I could tell it’s not Zeb. Not exactly, anyway. Part of it is, part of it isn’t.”

“Sounds like a headache.”

“It is.”

“Which Star Destroyer did it want us to investigate, anyway?” Ezra asked. “And which agent?”

“An old fan of ours,” Kanan said, deadpan. “Agent Kallus, aboard the _Lawbringer._ ”

That startled an incredulous laugh out of Ezra.

When Kanan remained silent, he sat up and stared, wide-eyed, at the guy. The accusation was clear: _are you serious?_

Finally, Sabine agreed with him on that. 

“Great,” Hera said, dry as a Jakku desert. “They know us.”

“At least that guarantees a quick pick up,” Sabine drawled. “This creature have a name, so I know who to blame when we get caught?”

“Sasha,” Kanan said. “Blame Sasha.”

\- - -

Alexsandr Kallus had one personal effect: a dimly glowing meteorite that was warm to the touch and sat, alone, on a bedside shelf.

It was a familiar sight for Zeb, who had plucked it out of an icy hole while stuck in a bigger icy hole. It had surprised him that Kallus kept it. For the few cycles he’d remained free to wander about the ship - ostensibly to do his duty - and out of direct Imperial custody, it’d brought him a strange sort of comfort. It had been a warm thing to hold that, for all the weirdness and awfulness of his situation, brightened his morning and nights. The only sad part had been that, upon the fifth cycle, he’d woken up and noticed it was a little dimmer than his first night. 

Losing juice, he’d thought, though he didn’t know a thing about how it worked. Who knew how long it’d been struggling to keep putting out heat? It was probably running close to empty. 

He grew fond of the thing. As the cycles kept turning, he began to see a bit of why Kallus kept it.

There was no love lost between Agent Kallus and the ship’s crew when they traced his transmission’s signal to an unknown Mid Rim frequency (thankfully not actually the _Ghost’s_ ) or when they outlined the week’s worth of duties he’d either skimped on or messed up. There was definitely no love lost when Zeb gave up on playing nice and failed to be no less than bitingly sarcastic about their _responsibilities_.

There was hardly even hesitation before they labeled him as a suspected treasonist and tossed him into one of the ship’s holding cells. Once their business on Kashyyyk was concluded, they told him, they’d rendezvous with a prison shuttle and ship him off to Coruscant for a more thorough debriefing. 

_More thorough_ because they began the process themselves. 

The Star Destroyer was, Zeb quickly discovered, fully equipped to handle interrogations.

By the end, Kallus’s leg had graduated from _tender and sore_ to _no longer weight bearing._

The Agent’s reputation was also in irrepairable tatters, as Zeb had utilized his hatred for the Empire to satisfy the Imperials’ thirst for proof of his treasonous thoughts without actually revealing anything about the Resistance. As far as the Imperials knew, Agent Kallus had decided to go rogue only recently; had not contacted any factions, but planned instead to destroy the ship from the inside; had in fact been contacting a smuggler about bombs. 

It meant execution once he reached Coruscant and the right ISB people signed off on his death warrant, but the way Zeb saw it, that was just fine. So long as the _Ghost_ remained safe, he was - _mostly_ \- fine with his death. 

Honestly, he was surprised he’d lasted this long. Not in relation to his being Kallus-- no, in general. He hadn’t expected to outlive his King or Queen. He hadn’t been meant to, and he haven’t always been sure he’d wanted to.

The _Ghost_ crew had changed that outlook. He refused to outlive them, too, even if that meant outliving them as little as taking the last bolt from a firing squad.

Zeb scrubbed a hand over his face and down to the back of his neck. The smooth, hairless quality of it bothered him. The prickling pain in his fingertips, left over from the Empire’s damnable love for electricity in their fun little _sessions_ , didn’t help matters. 

“This’s too much time to yourself,” he muttered under his breath. “Keep it together, Garazeb. Little silence and alone time never hurt anybody.”

As he was very much alone in his cell, no one answered.

The speed with which the Empire turned on its own was not surprising. The lack of efficiency in dealing with their prisoners, no matter how high-ranking or treason-suspecting, was also not surprising.

Zeb still wished they’d hurry it up.

Then again, he had no idea how long it’d been. Days? Weeks? Probably not months. The meals were irregular or non-existent, and they hadn’t turned off or dimmed the lights in all the time he’d been there.

He’d seen the inside of the interrogation room three times, with each session worse than the last. 

The last had been a while ago, he thought. Maybe they’d show up again soon. 

Right on cue, the door to his cell slid open. Two Stormtroopers, both in white, stood at stiff attendance at the entrance.

Zeb quickly righted himself, tamping down his wince at the pain in his joints and sharp stabbing in his unbandaged, unsupported leg. They’d rebroken the kriffing thing after they didn’t like one of his answers, which he had thought excessive once he’d stopped being consumed by the agony of it.

“Back for another round?” He asked them, unable to help himself. “Answers haven’t changed, you bucketheads. This is all a big waste of time.”

“Agent Kallus,” the trooper on the left said, his voice muffled by the helmet but very _recognizable_ , his blaster held high, “you have a choice. Come with us, or stay here and enjoy your short time in prison before your execution.”

Zeb couldn’t believe his ears.

Which, human ears were _shitty_ , so maybe he shouldn’t believe his ears. 

While he stared, the trooper continued solemnly: “We know you’ve been charged with treason. The Empire doesn’t look kindly on traitors, as you know.”

“Kanan? Is that you?”

“I won’t tell you more than-- wait, what?”

“Kanan!” Zeb tried to stand, rash in his excitement-- but ended up falling back to the bench that doubled as the cell’s bed as his leg patently refused to hold his weight. Though it hurt like hell, it didn’t dampen Zeb’s bright grin for a second. “Took you long enough! Always knew you’d be coming for me.”

The trooper on the right looked at the other.

Zeb rambled on, surprised by the amount of relief he felt.

“Ezra, that you? Hold on, _hold on_ , how’d you know where to find me? Actually-- no, okay, I appreciate it, I really do, but you guys shouldn’t be here. How much are you risking by busting me out?” A pause. Then, with a sudden wash of panic because it was something he _really_ had no idea how they’d answer: “How’s my body? You’ve got my body, right? Please say you’ve got my body.”

“Uh,” Kanan said. “Your body.”

“Zeb?” the other hazarded. 

Turned out it wasn’t Ezra. It was Sabine. Ezra must’ve been on distraction duty.

It couldn’t be a dream - his everything hurt too much for that. The rescue was happening. They were busting him out.

Zeb’s heart felt fit to bust out of his distressingly hairless chest. “Yeah, it’s me. Know this face is deceiving, but I swear, it’s me.”

“You look like Kallus?” Kanan said, question borne of confusion. “A really roughed up Kallus.”

“Your body’s… fine,” Sabine said. Before he could ask what was up with the hesitation, she swapped topics. “They do a number on you, big guy?” 

“You could say that,” he huffed, letting it go for now. “Doesn’t matter. Didn’t tell ‘em nothing.”

“Didn’t think you would,” Sabine said, voice almost - dare he say it - _fond._

Kanan started forward, holstering his blaster and soon offering a hand to help Zeb up.

Zeb took it, his smile a bit wobbly. He couldn’t help -- maybe he hadn’t expected them to come for him, hadn’t even thought they would know how, but they _had._ ‘Course they had. He shouldn’t have expected any different.

“Leg’s busted,” he told them, “can’t move fast. Really, how’d you guys know to get me?”

“That’s an interesting story,” Kanan said, slinging his arm over his shoulder and helping him gingerly to his feet. “I thought I knew the truth before walking in here, but now, I’ve got no idea.”

“Huh. Alright.” For some reason, he didn’t think he was going to like what they had to say. “Just glad you’re here.”

“Ezra’s distraction should be starting soon,” Sabine said. “We can’t take it too slow. Save the chatter ‘til we’re free.”

Right on _that_ cue, the lights blinked red and an alarm blared.

 _Intruder!_ yelled the intercom. _Security report to floor four!_

“Right,” Kanan said, “let’s get out of here.”

“-- Wait,” Zeb said, though he wasn’t sure why and in fact surprised himself in the conviction he felt about it, “can we detour to the officer quarters? There’s some things I need to grab before we leave.”

“We don’t have--”

“Please.”

The strength of his sentiment startled Zeb. By Sabine’s and Kanan’s sudden silence, it startled them, too.

Even through the helmet, Zeb heard Kanan blow out a breath before answering.

“Sure. Why not.”

 _Because it could cost them more than time._ Still, Zeb knew-- felt in his bones, same as he would feel if he’d lost his bo-staff- he had to get the agent’s bo-staff and meteorite.

. . .

The bo-staff and meteorite cost them time and Kanan and Sabine’s cover, but they made it work.

The escape was a narrow one, the _Phantom_ gaining a few new scorch marks on its rear hull, _but they made it work._

Zeb didn’t bother thinking about how wrong everything could have gone, because the answer was _very._ Kanan had to use the Force to give Ezra the boost to get into the ship at the last second. Sabine had a sore shoulder, and would’ve had a much bigger problem if not for her reflexes. Zeb, for his part, had to sit on the floor, leg stretched out next to the agent’s bo-staff, meteorite clutched in his hands, and try not to tear up too bad over how their abrupt take off jostled his leg something horrid. 

“We got Zeb,” Kanan commed in to Hera.

Her voice came back grainy and flabbergasted. “Sorry, please repeat that, Spectre one. Did you say Zeb?”

“Hey,” Zeb called from the back, just to be helpful. “Yep, it’s me.”

“You’re looking worse than usual,” Ezra said, because he was a brat, “but smelling better than usual. Did you learn how to take a shower while you were human?”

Zeb glared at him. Ezra grinned back, _like a brat._

The sight made it hard to keep a smile off his own face, to be fair.

“I never got an answer ‘bout my body.” Ezra blinked, confused for a half-beat, before his eyes widened in obvious and open understanding. _Gotcha_ , Zeb thought. “Is it alright? You’ve got it, right?”

“Uh… About that,” Ezra hedged.

Sabine, sitting across the way, snorted.

The combo of reactions turned Zeb’s smile upside down. 

“What do you mean, ‘about that?’ What happened? I was assumin’ it was where I left it, with you guys.”

“Yeah,” Ezra dragged out, fingers curling around his knees, “so, about that.”

“You know how you’re Kallus?” Sabine cut in. “That’s what happened.”

Zeb’s frown deepened.

“What? I’m not following. I’m not actually Kallus.”

“But you’ve got his body,” Ezra pointed out.

“Hard to miss that, kid. But what’s that got to do with my body?”

“ _So,_ ” Ezra said, one hand rolling in a _obviously, the next logical step is…_ gesture.

Zeb blinked once. Twice.

His thoughts ground to a harsh, unhappy stop.

“No way. No kriffin’ way.”

“We don’t know for sure,” Kanan said from the front, though it definitely sounded like he did know for sure.

Sabine shrugged, winced, and stubbornly didn’t prod at her injured shoulder.

Ezra made an _eh_ face.

“Telling me you’re joking,” Zeb begged.

“Yeah. I mean, no. Not joking. Your body’s been occupied by--”

“ _Karabast_!” 

“I know, right--”

“I’m going to hang him by the ears if he did anything weird with it!”

Kanan said something about Zeb being much more careless with Kallus’s body than Kallus had been with his.

Since Kanan was a human and had no idea about living aboard the disturbingly bland Imperial ship, Zeb ignored him.

Ezra shrugged helplessly. “He’s currently locked in a closet.”

“He’s-- _what?_ ”

\- - -

For one of the seedier ports in the Mid Rim, Port Tarrok didn’t have a half-bad produce market.

Or maybe it was that the Bridger boy had better taste and a sense for quality than Kallus gave him credit for. That seemed more unlikely, as Kallus had been bunking with him for close to a fortnight and had seen both his clothing collection (limited) and his laundry pile (somehow larger than the former).

Whatever the reason, the fruit stall Bridger took him to three or so cycles ago had a variety of relatively fresh and barely freezer burnt edibles. The orange meiloorun had been surprisingly flavorful. Even more, the look on Bridger’s face when he realized they had the credits for an extra melon for Syndulla had been inordinately excited.

Bridger informed him on their way back that he’d have palmed the melon if they hadn’t the credits, but admitted a desire to avoid the displeased look on Syndulla’s face after the theft was inevitably outed.

The owner of a bits-and-ends stall interrupted that she knew the Rodian that ran the fruit stall, and that the Rodian used to be a spice smuggler himself with business as far as the once infamous pirate Hondo Ohnaka, and that Bridger would have been lucky to only lose a hand. 

The look on Bridger’s face at being overheard, combined with the lingering sweetness of a meiloorun, had made Kallus laugh.

Ezra hadn’t appreciated his laughter, but just as Kallus began to wonder if the boy was truly angry about it, he’d smirked and said he could still beat Kallus-- or, rather, Zeb- in a race back to the _Ghost._ Kallus had told him, easy as anything, that was dead wrong, and he’d prove it _right then._

Kallus still wasn’t entirely sure what inspired the sense of camaraderie the day had ended on. Regardless, it was difficult to deny that it had been the most relaxing afternoon he had since… a while.

Even if Ezra had beaten him in the race, it was a childish thing to do in the first place and did not truly impact the day’s good spirits. That Kallus couldn’t say he’d been exclusively acting when he swore to best the boy next time was besides the point.

Actually, given his current cuffed and imprisoned-in-a-very-tiny-closet state, it was all besides the point.

He should’ve turned them in the moment he’d accepted his new reality. The Empire wasn’t fond of lasats - obviously - but perhaps the delivery of the _Ghost_ crew would have netted his new body some points, and eventually, he could hope to do more than janitorial work on a Star Destroyer.

Except the only time he knew he could’ve turned them in had been right away, and now-- _now_ -

Well. 

His mind kept straying to the good afternoon.

And, before that, the little things the crew did for one another. The loyalty. The honesty. The passion.

And, before that, Geonosis’ moon. A sense of honor. A sense of purpose. Something untangled in Imperial webs, and someone who was clear and true.

_It was all besides the point._

The closet would open again on two possibilities: first, to the faces of a Rebel troop _actually_ equipped to interrogate him, or second, to the faces of an Imperial troop and a blaster set to kill. Neither situation was ideal. 

How long could lasat go without eating or drinking, he wondered absently (while glaring at the much too small vent and then his own much too large body). Certainly, his hunger grew, but that was nothing he hadn’t dealt with before. 

Starvation was not on the option wheel, however. Of that, he was sure.

However, neither had been the frowning Captain Syndulla and Wren opening the closet, dragging him out and standing him, stiff back and legs protesting, to face down _himself_. 

Except that was exactly what happened.

So, really, who could predict what happened after that? Certainly not him.

Of course, his mind refused to ever quiet down, and so he tried to guess. All guesses went predictably out the window when his face’s mouth opened and, in an undeniably familiar diction, spoke.

“I don’t know what you’re talkin’ about, Ezra. I don’t smell that bad.”

Kallus’ thoughts derailed entirely.

Ezra sputtered indignantly. Syndulla said something about needing to stay on track. The spare bolts held together with tape and gum that they called Chopper grumbled his own input.

Kallus, not hearing any of them because he was too busy taking in the sight that was _his_ body barely sitting upright on the lobby’s aged couch, blurted out:

“ _What_ did you do to my body, you great purple oaf?”

“Whoa,” Zeb said, because that had to be Zeb, he had Kallus’ body as sure as Kallus had his, what in all the _Sith’s hells_? “I did nothing. You broke your own leg, and the Imperials did the rest.”

Kallus’ eyes snapped down to said leg.

The deep, near black stain on already dark pants was not heartening.

“What are you waiting for?” He asked Syndulla, turning his head to glare at her. “Don’t any of you have bacta?”

“How did we ever think he was Zeb?” Wren muttered to his left.

“Yeah,” the real Zeb protested, “how did you? Thought you guys knew me better’n that.”

“It isn’t your fault I’m a great actor,” Kallus supplied.

He heard a snort from just out of view. The Jedi, probably.

It took the Jedi nine cycles to figure out who he was, so the Jedi could stuff it.

Kallus maturely put aside his opinions on the matter and locked eyes with the Captain. “Bacta. Where is it? He must be in incredible pain.”

“No worse than what I’ve dealt with before,” the no-longer-lasat mumbled.

Syndulla looked unimpressed at both of them. 

“Are you concerned for him or your fragile body?”

_Did it matter?_

He tilted his chin up. 

It didn’t matter. He didn’t need to answer that.

Syndulla raised one eyebrow. Then, before long at all, she sighed and shook her head.

“Don’t worry about your precious leg, Agent. We haven’t enough bacta for an injury that large. We’ll have to make an emergency stop.”

“Eh, not on my behalf, you shouldn’t--”

“Very good,” Kallus cut in. “After all, we may be stuck like this, and prosthetics are not an inexpensive endeavor.”

Alarm did not look good on his face. Especially not such open, frank, _honest_ alarm.

“I could lose the leg? You humans really are fragile.”

Kallus, watching himself for signs of the agony he must have been in (unless they gave him some numbing agent-- that was likely), stayed quiet.

The others, naturally, began to debate about whether or not the two would be stuck forever in the wrong bodies. Jedi tales and knowledge was sought, but the Jedi had no answers. Syndulla mentioned a planet she had visited wherein the mind of one being was often switched with another’s, but that was a species-limited ritual.

The Bridger boy seemed very happy to have his roommate back, though he did well to cover it up. He did not cover up the distaste he felt for Kallus. That was fine. 

Eventually, they remembered he was not their Zeb, and made to put him back in the makeshift cell.

He dug his toes into the floor- which was still a strange but powerful feeling-, because it really was cramped and dark and all around unpleasant, but he was sure he would lose.

Then the real Zeb stepped in- metaphorically- on his behalf, saying they should let him stay out. He continued to say that if he hadn’t contacted the Imperials yet or cut their throats in their sleep, what were they worried about? Not like the Empire would let him back in looking like a lasat.

“He has a point,” Kallus couldn’t help but drawl. They were all the points he had been thinking himself, after all, only much more convincing.

That got him a dirty look from Wren and Ezra and, possibly, the droid. 

He, again, held his head high, and did not think about the difference in their attitudes between this day and the last, or the one before that, or the one before that.

“I’ll keep an eye on him,” Zeb continued, drawing attention back to himself. His expression was so open, Kallus couldn’t recognize a shred of himself in it. Nevermind Kallus-- how had _Zeb_ gotten through any amount of days without one of his coworkers noticing? “Not as if I can go much of anywhere.”

A few glances were exchanged, a few pairs of arms crossed unhappily across chests.

“Alright.” Syndulla finally announced the group’s apparent consensus, though Kallus hadn’t tracked the unspoken conversation. “You’re on guard duty, Zeb. I’m going to set our coordinates for Geonosis. If that’s where this all started…”

“Instead of some whacky ‘science experiment,’” Bridger muttered. Kallus diplomatically did not roll his eyes - he couldn’t believe they’d _ever_ gone for that ridiculous story.

“... Then that’s where we’ll go,” Jarrus finished.

Syndulla nodded. Slowly, the rest of the crew nodded, too, each of their acceptances taken in turn.

After another exchange of glances behind his back, the Captain and Wren unhanded him and stepped away.

Kallus did _not_ sway in place, though he felt a bit like a puppet with strings suddenly cut.

He glanced at both, then at the rest of the group. They weren’t going to shove him back into a cell? Really? With a lasat’s strength, he could easily overpower Zeb’s weakened form and make a decent bid for escape. He could call the Imperials. He could take the _Phantom_. He could put a blaster to their heads and execute them in their sleep.

But that was what they expected him to do.

And that was not, perhaps, what he wanted to do.

“The binders?” He asked, affecting a falsely light tone. He wiggled his fingers behind his back, just to make a point.

“Binders stay,” Syndulla said at the same time as Zeb groused, “C’mon, guys, was he really that bad?”

“Binders stay,” the Captain repeated. The others agreed.

Zeb rolled his eyes, caught Kallus’, shrugged as if to say _what can you do?_ , and didn’t argue again.

Later, Kallus was seated awkwardly on one end of the couch - he had to perch on the edge so as to not pinch his hands - and Zeb on the other, his bo-staff set carefully across his lap. Zeb inspected and polished the thing as if he’d been missing for a decade rather than nine-to-ten standard day cycles.

“That was a nice gesture,” Kallus told him when he was sure they were alone.

Zeb looked up at him, question clear on his face.

Kallus leaned forward and, again, wiggled his fingers. The claws clacked against one another and sent an odd shiver up his spine.

Understanding, Zeb snorted and put his attention back to his weapon. 

“Yeah, well. Once we switched back, I don’t want to deal with that pins-and-needles feeling because you were stuck in some closet with binders on. Besides. Seems redundant.”

“Pins and needles? Really?”

Zeb grimaced. “I realize I’m not leaving you much of a prize, but wasn’t exactly my call.”

“I know.”

Zeb blinked at him.

Kallus stared back, realized too late how close to _forgiving_ the words sounded, and looked away. 

The rest of the lobby wasn’t very interesting, but he studied it nonetheless. After a moment, the unmistakable sound of a bo-staff being turned over and its cleaning resuming poked holes in the awkward silence.

Eventually, he cleared his throat. 

“There’s very little chance we’ll be able to--”

“Don’t.”

Kallus bristled. “What?”

“Our odds aren’t looking great,” Zeb growled, hunkering down into his work, “and we both know it. No sense talking about it.”

“Perhaps you noticed something I failed to,” Kallus snapped, ire rising. He could tell his fur was sticking up and his ears had pinned, but he had yet to figure out how to control that, and wasn’t bothered to start now. “That’s all I wish to discuss.”

“Is it?” Zeb was unimpressed, and shot him a look saying as much. “Well, Kallus, I decline talking about it. How’s that?”

“Annoying.”

Zeb snorted, his face shifting quickly into a small, lopsided smile. 

After a few seconds, the smile spread, and a look of excitement with it.

Kallus’ irritation faltered at the sight. He eyed the lasat-turned-human warily.

“I brought some things of yours. The bo-staff.” 

Kallus started, caught off-guard at both his own relief and the simple fact Zeb had-- must have- gone out of his way to get an old weapon. 

Zeb continued with, “And the meteorite.”

Kallus swallowed wrong and devolved into a coughing fit.

Zeb, more amused than concerned, patted his back. 

“Can’t believe you kept that,” he said, his voice-- dare Kallus say, _fond?_ What in the Sith’s hells was that about? “It’s looking dim, but it’s still glowing.”

“Yes,” Kallus gritted out, ears both pinning and heating, eyes cast anywhere but at Zeb’s, “I am aware. I kept it for-- for-”

“Don’t try lying to me, bud. I know all my own tells.”

“Do you.”

“Yep. Never saw my ears go that dark that fast, though, lemme say.”

Kallus huffed, and leaned back. Kriff the binders, anyway.

Zeb, low and deep, chuckled.

. . .

Though Zeb didn’t understand a single chirp out of Chopper’s circuitry, Chopper understood every word out of his mouth, so he just kept requesting his pack from the Star Destroyer and a halfway decent pillow until the droid got so annoyed it scuttled off down the hall.

“He’ll either be back in a bit with my stuff or we’ll wake up with his electric prod in our sides,” he told Kallus.

“Great odds as always, Zeb.”

It was real weird to hear those words in his voice and coming out of his face but without a trace of _him._ Like looking into a mirror only for it to come alive, complete with its own personality.

‘Course, what was the truth was that it was Kallus in there, not some hypothetical person from Zeb’s imagination. 

Except this Kallus acted different from how Zeb would’ve thought he’d be before Geonosis’ moon, and different still from even that long, cold night. His time with the crew must have worn down something in him. Zeb would ask about it, but he knew just conversing about the mundane was pushing the guy to his limits. 

It was a bit of a shame. Zeb had wondered in the night after the moon if Kallus would take their time to heart and, maybe, change his opinion on the Empire. He hadn’t wondered with much hope -- not many walked away from a job like Kallus’. His belief in the Empire was completely ill-founded, but Zeb understood very well the need _for_ a belief. Rattling it was one thing; breaking it down could pull the rug from under his feet and leave him falling for the rest of his life.

This whole… body switching business had forced the issue. Zeb knew it was for the better, but he wasn’t sure Kallus did.

Zeb shifted on his seat, trying to find a little more comfortable position. The bum leg throbbed dully, Hera’s numbing shots and its tight bandages just barely abating the pain. More likely than not, he’d need a full bacta treatment-- maybe even a dunk in a tank if they were pressed for time. 

They usually were.

Kallus’ sudden words startled Zeb out of his thoughts. 

“I haven’t a clue how your balance works.”

Zeb glanced up, pulling his hands back before they started rubbing at the ache-y leg. “Huh?”

“Your balance.” Kallus raised one leg, then set it back down. Zeb tried not to let the sight creep himself out. “It always feels like I’m a second from falling, and you have a long way to fall before you meet the ground.”

“Why, thank you. I think.” That had been calling him tall, hadn’t it? Eh. Zeb would take it. Anyway-- “Most lasat aren’t bipedal ‘til way past when a human is.”

Kallus’ nose scrunched up. 

Zeb resisted the urge to smirk. “Guess you’re basically a toddler in an adult’s body.”

Kallus’s mouth flattened out.

But rather than send back a mean-spirited barb, he simply said, “That’s rich, from you.”

“Hey, what’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing. -- Where’s that droid?”

“Told you,” Zeb returned, letting the ribbing go good-naturedly, “Chopper runs on his own schedule.” 

Kallus didn’t look too happy about that, either, but then, who ever was? Chopper was more ornery lothcat than droid. Zeb would’ve campaigned for a new one if he didn’t know the rustbucket mattered so much to Hera.

A moment of quiet passed between them. Kallus was slumped on his right side, one leg drawn halfway up on the couch. He’d slowly relaxed, though tension and a need to look dignified still straightened his posture and blanked his expression whenever someone else wandered through the lobby. As the night cycle hit and people retired to their beds (though Zeb had to glare at Hera to get her to _just go_ and stop pretending to forget things near the lobby area, because he and Kallus would be _fine_ , jeez, trust him a bit), the traffic dwindled to nothing. 

As on the moon, when it was just the two of them, Kallus at last seemed to get less… well. Callous. 

Zeb’d told himself he wouldn’t push the topic, but as he watched Kallus’s eyes droop and the silence became distinctly companionable, he decided he was more of a _now or never_ kind of person, and it definitely felt like a _now_ moment.

“Kallus.” 

Black set in green shifted his way, brow raised in absent curiousity.

“Why didn’t you report us?”

The brow furrowed.

He straightened up from his slouch, shoulders strung just a notch tighter.

Zeb repressed a sigh.

“You weren’t here, so it would be ‘them,’ not ‘us.’” 

Zeb did not repress a sigh.

“You know what I mean. You had ample opportunity to turn in the folks you’d been hunting for…”

“Years.”

“It certainly felt like that.”

“It was that.”

Zeb waved a dismissive hand, and did not look at how pink-toned it was. “A long time. And now you had our coordinates, and no reason not to send in a report.”

“Perhaps I was repaying my debt to you.”

That put a frown on his face. “You didn’t even know if I was still around.”

Kallus went silent. His eyes remained on Zeb’s.

“No,” he finally admitted. “I didn’t.” Then, after another pause, gaze steady, “I did try. To report the _Ghost’s_ location.”

“I’ve seen your record logs and walked around in your shoes for a bit,” -- and before Kallus could interrupt to ask what he’d all seen of his dismal working situation, Zeb hastily continued, “I know how your coworkers look at you. You haven’t got a habit of failing.”

“Except with this crew.”

“Yeah.” That put a little grin on Zeb’s face, and it wasn’t entirely kind. “But we’re an exception to most things.”

Kallus snorted, at last glancing away.

He drew his words out carefully, as if measuring each individually before offering them to Zeb. For all Zeb knew of Kallus, he probably was doing just that. 

“As it is, my colleagues and superiors wouldn’t have welcomed a lasat’s word, let alone one telling them to travel so far from typical Imperial space. But that is an excuse. They would have came. They did come. In truth, I wasn’t sure what had become of my body. If I could get back, I couldn’t risk losing…”

The words trailed off. 

Then returned, stronger than before, though Kallus still wouldn’t look at him.

“The _Ghost’s_ capture would have been quite a marked success for my record. I couldn’t lose that to one of its own identified members. That’s all.”

It didn’t sound right to Zeb.

It sounded like a half-truth at most, in fact.

Had Kallus been afraid as he had been? As horrified at his surroundings, as isolated in his confusion? An attempt at secrecy and normalcy - even if the normalcy hadn’t been their own - had been the only way to keep their heads above water. 

And beyond that: to do otherwise was to, if they did ever switch back, completely ruin each other’s ways of life. However poorly Zeb thought of Kallus’ career path, no dignified person deserved such unfairness.

It had happened anyway, but not for lack of trying to the contrary.

 _No dignified species deserved to be eradicated,_ a bit of him hissed, but the majority of him noted that it hadn’t been Kallus ordering the Lasat’s genocide. Yes, Kallus should have had the moral backbone to know better; but they were both soldiers. They often did as ordered.

Or, at least, they had.

Nearly an hour after requested, Chopper at last brought a pillow from his bunk and his stuff from the Star Destroyer. The bo-staff was clutched in a claw, and the meteorite with its dim glow was, somehow, set upon the droid’s dome.

The droid dropped the staff on the table next to Zeb’s, tilted until the meteorite fell to the same, and then chucked the pillow at Zeb’s head.

Zeb caught it with a grunt, grumbling a _yeah, yeah, thanks, Chop_ after the droid as it quickly about-faced and sped away.

“I can’t believe you grabbed that ridiculous rock,” Kallus said once he was gone. His eyes were on the meteorite and its weak yellow glow. It’d be a pity when the glow faded entirely -- sentimental though it was, it’d feel like losing a piece of the strange camaraderie they’d developed on the moon.

Funny of him to think that, since he hadn’t even known Kallus had kept the thing.

In any case, Zeb just laughed at the other’s words. He was tempted to reach out and pat the guy on the back, because he sounded embarrassed again, but he wasn’t feeling that cruel. 

Mostly, he was feeling tired.

He made himself comfortable with the pillow, feeling only slightly bad about Kallus being left to sleep on a stiff couch without anything extra. But, then, he was injured. Kallus was not. And, it was still a step up from the closet. _And_ , okay, maybe some of him still wasn’t too happy about Kallus’ Imperial status.

Though he had to wonder how long that status was going to last. It wasn’t as if Kallus could go back. At best, he’d be marked as a deserter; at worst, a rebel in the making. Really, that Kallus hadn’t asked about what he’d done to deserve the obvious marks of torture was fairly telling.

Aw, karabast. Now he felt actually bad about not getting the guy a pillow too.

“Thank you for... “ 

Zeb looked up, blinking convorishly. 

Kallus, head tilted on the couch backrest, one leg curved under him and the other at a relaxed sprawl, cleared his throat. A sign of nerves or embarrassment, Zeb was quickly learning. 

“... retrieving the bo-staff.” 

Oh.

That?

“Couldn’t let some undeserving twerp put their paws on it.” Zeb paused. “Not after you earned it fair and square.”

Kallus nodded, a short, sharp jerk of the head. 

That was enough emotionally taxing Bantha shit for the night, Zeb thought. He curled as much as he could onto the couch, his bad leg propped up on a spare crate.

“Night,” he said.

“Good night,” Kallus replied, sounding a touch relieved himself at the declared end of conversation. 

Zeb had thought he’d make a fine watch because there was no way his body would be happy to sleep on half of the uncomfortable couch. 

Of course, just as on Geonosis’ moon, he proved himself wrong, as he drifted almost immediately into a deep, dreamless sleep.

. . .

That night cycle, the _Ghost_ slept soundly. From Jedi to Captain, not a single soul of its crew stirred.

Kallus knew, because he made his way to the docked _Phantom_ without interference. It took a horrifically long time, his leg slowing him down even with the aid of his bo-staff as a makeshift cane. 

It had taken less time to orientate himself in his own body. Though his mind refused to let go of the surreal sensation and suspend disbelief, he’d forced himself up and away from the still-slumbering lasat. 

Rather: from Zeb. It appeared whatever switched their minds had decided to switch them back.

The meteorite, he noted, had completely lost its glow.

Perhaps Zeb would keep it anyway, uselessness aside.

(He’d tried to take it himself, had almost refused to leave it behind, but he’d needed both hands to make his escape. Limping through a ship without waking said ship was an all-consuming job).

Kallus, standing in front of the _Phantom’s_ doors, wondered what its freedom would bring him.

He could contact the Empire. He could… what, explain the situation? He wasn’t so naive to think that it would work, even if they did believe him. 

He could leave. Find a new world, perhaps a new life.

Out loud, he snorted to himself. Civilian life wasn’t for him. He wasn’t so desperate he couldn’t acknowledge that.

The _Phantom_ offered a way out and away from the surreal, insane time he’d spent as a rebel lasat. At least if he left, he wouldn’t have to attempt to negotiate his way through dealings with rebels, or ever learn what had happened, or what Zeb had done and would do--

_Karabast._

“Indeed,” he muttered to himself, voice flat. 

He gazed upon his way out, and already knew his answer. 

It took longer to get to the _Ghost’s_ kitchen than it had to the _Phantom_ , but at least there he could nurse a cup of (awful, gritty) caf while he waited for the Captain or Jedi to wake and find him. 

There was much to discuss. He’d need to sit down with Zeb, as well, and find out just how tattered his reputation became. It would serve as a nice marker for how big he could expect his inevitable bounty to be.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading! visit me on tumblr @ unkingly if you'd like. :)


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